July 12: Arriving Mumbai

I'm writing from 10,000+ feet in the air, on SpiceJet air (love it!) We're about 30 minutes into the flight and I've read the in-flight magazine cover to cover, lots of info about food, tourist spots, famous people (a handful of whom I recognize from films) and the corporate side of air travel in India. Overall, an interesting magazine, if a bit glossy/bubble-gummy (as in, not interested in subtle advertising or copy). Looking down, I see that most land is blocked off into rectangles, brown and green patches dot the ground. I guess it's not a wonder that Punjab is the breadbasket of India...looks like all land is involved (either in cultivation or fallow). I forgot to mention earlier, basmati rice is from here--in fact it is only grown here, perhaps as in the case of champagne. 

Land below obscured clouds. Our flight is 2:15 long, and I can't catch the names of the towns we'll by flying over. Just heard Jaipur, but that'll apparently be visible out of the other side of the plane--rats. 

The airport in Amritsar bears comment: it's a huge, modern, glossy affair, looks like matte sterling silver. Er, guess that could be unpolished chrome. It's industrial, with exposed silver beams, lots of birds flying around...not much use made of such high ceilings from what I could tell. But it's an impressive edifice, near empty but for the security teams. They probably outnumbered passengers 1.5 to 1, but again, that's just what I saw. The security patdown comes after you've interacted with 1/2 dozen folks checking your boarding pass, luggage tags (they have a thing for that) and bags. This was the most thorough patdown I've had, barring that one uncomfortably by-the-book full body check in Frankfort a few years ago. Ick. And the notable thing was I got the privilege of going through it twice. Long story short, I purchased two kirpan (Sikh ceremonial swords about 4" long) and forgot to put them in my suitcase. So after emptying my entire backpack--mental image of mobile device cords, balled up tissues (unused!), hotel sewing kit, tampons, etc.--I had to gather everything up and go back to the check-in, via the curtained-off patdown area (for passengers' privacy). They called my suitcase back from the loading area and...then I realized I had stowed the suitcase lock keys in my backpack, which was with our tour guide at the gate. Luckily my suitcase has a side zipped pocket, so I could stash the kirpans there. When the guys who screened my suitcase (again) smiled at my name, I realized it was a pattern. Something about the name Youngblood tickles the Indian funny bone. This will bear investigation.

Interesting land forms below, long stripes of low mountains, it looks like, kind of like thin and peaked vole tracks in our yard. One section is curiously closed off, almost in the shape of a fish or eye, with just a narrow opening at one end. Wow, what a weird natural formation. there are fields in there, communities. Wonder if their self-sustaining. Actually, I'm not sure how low those mountains are. I wonder if they're the Western Ghats. I'll have to look into that. 

Snacks and drinks are available, but only for sale. The announcement at takeoff reminded passengers that there's no tobacco or alcohol on SpiceJet flights. Interesting. 

I get to room with Chris Gibson (librarian, former teacher) from NYC in Mumbai. That will be fun. I also learned today that I'll get to room by myself in Hyderabad: WHOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Arriving Mumbai:

We're an hour late, due to late start and lots of circling (in turbulence) over the airport. Exiting the slick, modern facility anybody who's read Katherine Boo's book Beyond the Beautiful Forevers is instantly thrown back into that world. You know that the airport walls are the dividing line between a world in which you are comfortable--materialiy, psychic-ly (is that a world)--and a world that would eat you alive, undoing you at the scope of poverty and deprivation. What Boo captured in pieces was the story of ingenuity, or hope...but only for some, and in a capricious, unpredictable way. More present, however, is the crime, corruption, disease, and want. And that would make me afraid. 

We are in a bus that resembles (in my imagination) the tour buses of groups like Martha and the Vandellas. The AC is aggressive and infuses the bus with a smell not typical of cars at home. There is a bar across all the windows (for support? to divide what can be opened?) that lies just in my line of sight, so I have to scrunch way over and duck my head down to look out. The city is alive,with lots of different folks on the streets. We're going down a main thoroughfare, where individuals, couples, and groups walk, boys atop motorbikes sit talking in clusters. Horns blare (that sentence must appear at least once in everyone's writing about Indian cities). The thoroughfare is cleaner than I would expect, though we have driven by large piles of garbage on the sidewalk. I have seen a few beggars, plus kids selling stuff in a big intersection near the airport exit.

We just drove by a mosque. I wouldn't have known except there were rows of men kneeling in prayer, touching their heads to their prayer mats--probably 100+ men and boys stretched along the sidewalk, in 3 rows 40-50 men long. That must mean that the mosque is filled to capacity. Then I remember, it's Ramadan.

Sanjeev says we'll be at the hotel by 10:30, then can have dinner. Tomorrow is a FULL day. 

In the room: 

It's freezing in here! Not sure why 21 degrees Celsius says "welcome home" in other countries. Seriously.